Eight telecom equipment suppliers including Nokia, Motorola, Alcatel, Nortel and Ericsson on Tuesday submitted bids for supplying 1.1 million cellular lines worth upto Rs 5,000 crore (Rs 50 billion) to Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.
While seven bids have been received for North and East zones each, five bids came for South zone, sources associated with the tender process said in New Delhi.
The order for West zone has already been awarded to ITI, which has entered into a technical tie-up with Alcatel for developing telecom equipment.
When contacted, BSNL CMD V P Sinha said: "We have received the bids and will start the process of evaluation...the entire process may take upto three months to finalise the bidder."
Other players who participated in the tender inlcude ZTE, Siemens and Huawei.
According to sources, BSNL would first evaluate the commercial and technical bids which may take between four to six weeks and then the financial bids would be opened.
ZTE Ltd has participated in the tender in collaboration with the Bangalore-based UTL, while Huawei is believed to have collaborated with HFCL.
Sources also said though the tender is for 1.1 million cellular lines, there would be a provision to increase or decrease the quantum of lines as per the market condition.
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